He sucked in another breath of cool morning air and could almost feel it clearing out all the dust in his lungs. His friends said it was too quiet, but had they listened, really listened? The birds called to loved ones, back and forth from above and all around. The bugs croaked a different melody from the ground. Squirrels, when they scuttled about the forest floor, sounded like a speeding jaguar leaping on its prey.
And then he heard it, the sound he’d been waiting for while holding his steaming cup of coffee and wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. The gravel crunched under her mile-eating stride. When she cleared the curve, he let his free hand rest on his stomach and tried to wipe away the ache. He felt the clench in his gut, the adrenaline rush he felt just before reeling in a big fish. Jill Jennings probably wouldn’t appreciate being compared to a fish.
He felt himself lean forward in anticipation, ushering the moment of eye contact to fruition. He wasn’t disappointed by the wait. She was beauty in motion, although she’d probably hate that description as she pushed herself up the steep incline. Sweat made her thin shirt cling to her stomach muscles as they twisted with every step. Her quadriceps quivered, almost in tune with his thundering heart. She wasn’t the biggest fish he’d ever seen, not with her elegant build and slight frame, but she was the most magnificent.
Conflicted by his overwhelming attraction while still attached to his girlfriend back home, Ty avoided Jill most of the time, at the restaurant where she worked and whenever she came to the fly and rafting shop to visit her roommate. He didn’t even try to ignore her here, outside his door when he could watch her move and admire everything about her that had caught his attention from the very first glance.
She looked up, her head swung in his direction, and a line of irritation graced the delicate space between her dark brows. She glanced down at the path, but not before she landed on a rock that had fallen from the stony overhang at some point and came to rest in the road. Her ankle buckled and she went down hard, her leg crashing against a boulder lining the road. Ty heard the crack just seconds before her scream. He was at her side in a flash, grabbing her shoulders as she thrashed around on the ground, filling her chestnut hair with gravel and dirt.
“It’s broken,” she huffed through clenched teeth. “Damn it, it’s broken.”
Ty noticed her eyes hadn’t filled with tears, but the tawny color had almost disappeared around her enlarged pupils. She was dangerously close to shock.
“I’m going to pick you up and carry you to my truck,” he said.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, as if speaking loudly would make the pain spread throughout her body. “Call an ambulance. I don’t want to move.”
“I don’t think either one of us wants to wait forty minutes for an ambulance to come from Del Noches. I’ll be careful. Put your arms around my neck.”
After one uncertain look, she cinched her fingers around his neck and he lifted her into his arms, careful to support, but not grab her injured leg. Once he got the door open, he kicked his fly vest to the floorboard and gently placed her on the backseat. She used her arms to inch across so Ty could close the door before he raced inside the cabin for his keys, wallet, and cell phone.
He tried to drive with consideration for how every bump and turn felt as she braced herself with her arms and breathed heavily through her nose. “You okay back there?” he asked as he studied her face through the rearview mirror. She’d gone deathly pale and her pupils were still enlarged.
She let out a groan when the truck bounced over a rut in the gravel. “I will be once we get onto the blacktop.”
“We’re almost there.” He gunned the engine when they leveled out and he could see the pavement ahead. “Is there anyone you want me to call? Your family?”
“No. Not yet.” She held her lips tight and her head leaned back against the seat. “I’ll deal with them later.”
Ty could only wonder why she didn’t want her family around when she’d obviously broken her leg and lay writhing in pain. He knew her dad was her coach, but beyond that, he knew very little about the girl in his backseat, other than how she’d occupied his mind for most of the summer.
He passed an RV, a huge tractor, and a carful of tourists on the two-lane highway before pulling under the emergency overhang for Del Noches General. He hopped out, ran inside, grabbed a wheelchair, and lifted her from the truck as delicately as he could. He wheeled her in, oblivious to his state of half dress.
“I need some help here,” he said to no one specific when everyone seemed not to notice the girl whimpering in pain in the wheelchair with her leg lying at a very unnatural angle. When the nurse stood up and looked over the partition and down at Jill, she dropped her clipboard and bounded around the counter.
“What happened?”
“I broke my leg,” she managed before her eyes fluttered closed.
“She’s going into shock.” The nurse grabbed the wheelchair and ran her into the back. Ty stopped at the doors she’d disappeared behind and wondered what he should do. He walked back to his truck, fished his cell phone out of the cup holder, and called Tommy Golden at The Golden Rule fly shop.
“Tommy, it’s Ty.”
“Don’t tell me you’re canceling this afternoon with the Allgoods.”
“I’m not. Listen, I’m with Jill Jennings at the hospital. She broke her leg running on the road outside my house.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. They just took her back and I don’t have any way to get in touch with her family. Is Olivia there?”
Tommy blew out a breath loud enough for Ty to hear. “She’s out with a group, but I know someone who’d know. Where’d you take her? Westmoreland?”
“Del Noches.” When Tommy groaned, Ty explained, “It’s a bad break, Tommy. She was going into shock. I don’t think she’d have made it all the way to Westmoreland.”
“Her dad’s going to have a fit.”
“Yeah. Can you make some calls? I don’t want her to be here alone.”
“You leaving?”
He looked down at his bare feet and chest. “No, not until someone else gets here. But tell them to hurry.”
“Will do,” Tommy said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Ty knew when Jill’s father arrived. Picking him out as a track coach wasn’t hard, not with his lean figure and the gold windbreaker synonymous with the local college. His dark hair, the exact color of his daughter’s, was beginning to streak with gray around the temples and his worried expression turned to suspicion when Ty stood up and approached him as he waited by the nurses’ station.
“Mr. Jennings?” Ty asked.
Gary Jennings assessed Ty from toe to head. Ty stood at least half a foot taller than Jill’s dad. Despite his height advantage, Ty felt put in place by Gary’s disdainful stare, especially since Ty stood shirtless in a pair of flip-flops he’d found in the back of his truck. “Yes?”
“I’m Tyler Bloodworth. I brought your daughter in.”
“You did? From where?”
“She fell in front of my place on Vista Road just north of the Lower Fork.”
“Vista Road? What the hell was she doing up there?”
Ty lifted his shoulder. “Running?”
The nurse returned and told Gary he could follow her through the double doors. Gary didn’t even say thank you, or goodbye, or glance in Ty’s direction before hurling himself through the doors.
Ty’s cell phone rang as he walked to the parking lot. “Yeah,” he said when he recognized Tommy’s shop number on the display.
“Jill’s dad should be there soon.”
“He’s already here. Thanks for the warning.”
“Lyle said he’d be upset.”
“Lyle?” Ty rubbed the spot on his chest that continued to ache from not knowing how Jill was doing. The nurses wouldn’t even give him an update because he wasn’t family.
“Lyle Woodward. Friend of Jill’s; he lives in Hailey.”
“Oh.” Friend didn’t mean b
oyfriend, but that didn’t help Ty’s mood. Of course, he wasn’t exactly one to cast stones considering he’d yet to cut ties with Dana. “I’ll be in later for the Allgoods.”
“Last group of the season for you, my friend. You’re one hell of a fishing guide. If you change your mind and want to come back next summer, you let me know.”
“I just might,” Ty said. He’d been thinking about it since the first moment he saw Jill. “I’ll let you know by the end of the first semester.”
“Hell, kid. I thought I was pissing in the wind. What happened to Wyoming?”
“I like it here,” he said as he took one last glance at the hospital entrance where the real reason he’d come back was hopefully getting the help she needed. “More than I thought I would.”
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Shoe Strings Page 33
